EDUCATIONAL ARRANGEMENTS 

AND 

COLLEGE LIEE AT OBEE.LIN. 



ttauptal %Uxm 



OF 



PRESIDENT J. H.'^AIRCHILD, 



PELIVERED AT 



THE COMMENCEMENT OP OBEELIN COLLEGE, 

Mn^^t 22, a$aa. 



^ NEW YORK: 
PRINTED BY EDWARD O. JENKINS, 

No. 20 NORTH WILLIAM STREET. 
1866. 



EDUCATIONAL ARRANGEMENTS 

AND 

COLLEGE LIEE AT OBERLIN. 



OF 

PRESIDENT J. H. FAIRCHILD, 



DELIVERED AT 



\U<^__ 



THE COMMENCEMENT OF OBEELIN COLLEGE, 






5 NEW YORK: 
PKINTED BY EDWARD O. JENKINS, 

No. 20 NOETH WILLIAM STEEET. 
1866. 



ADDRESS 



The trust which you commit to me, Fathers and Brethren, is 
one of gravest importance, and if I were obliged to feel that it 
must fall on me alone or chiefly, I could not accept the responsibil- 
ity. The Fathers under whose fostering care the work has been 
carried on these thirty years and more, are still spared to us. 
The habit of looking up to them for counsel and encouragement, 
indulged through many years of connection with the College as 
pupil and teacher, must cling to me still ; and while they live and 
labor here it will be a relief to know that the burden rests first 
on them. Under such genial shade it has been my privilege and 
joy thus far to live and work. God grant me the privilege for 
many years to come. 

In the others associated with me in the common work I find 
abundant ground of confidence. The harmony absolutely un- 
broken in the past will continue in the future. Each will take his 
part of the burden, and make that easy for all which it would be 
impossible for one to bear alone. This mutual confidence and co- 
operation has been hitherto a pillar of strength. We have every 
promise of its continuance. Those added to our number by re- 
cent appointment are men of the same spirit. They have been 
tried here and elsewhere, and have not been found wanting. 

The principle and habit of good order, and of earnest life 
among our students, furnish another source of satisfaction and as- 
surance. In past years the young people collected here have en- 
tered into the spirit of the enterprise with a generous appreciation 
of the efi"orts and intentions of their teachers, and have thus made 
the abimdant labor more a pleasure than a burden. Our students 
of to-day show the same spirit, and we shall not look in vain for 
their co-operation in any movement that tends to wholesome dis- 
cipline and success in study. 

The people of the place who came at the outset to sustain the 



4 IIS-AUGURAL ADDRESS. 

enterprise have not failed to show a cordial interest in the wel- 
fare of the school. Without their hearty co-operation no success 
could have been achieved. Their influence has always been on 
the side of ^ood order, and has added strength and cliaracter to 
the general movement. The feeble colony which in the beginning 
embraced the College has grown to a thriving and wide-spread 
village ; but the same cordial good-will remains, and proves an 
invaluable auxiliary in the discipline of the school. 

Such aids as these greatly lighten the responsibility of the posi- 
tion you assign me, and give some degree of assurance to one 
who finds little ground of confidence in himself. With Grod's con- 
tinued favor the work will go on and prosper. 

Oberlin College is now entering upon its second generation, 
one-third of a century having elapsed since the foundation-stone 
was laid. During this period it has borne a prominent part in 
the work of Christian education in the West, and in addition has 
contributed its share to the solution of some special problems, 
educational, social, political, ecclesiastical and theological. The 
general work has always been made paramount, and other inter- 
ests have been admitted only as they seemed to grow out of the 
work, or to promise some help toward the grand result. It is 
doubtful whether an equal amount of educational work was ever 
performed by any other school in the country during the first gen- 
eration of its existence. This will not be regarded as a boastful 
claim, for no human foresight generated the forces by which this 
result has been accomplished. The first annual catalogue pre- 
sented a preparatory or high school, with a total attendance of 
one hundred young men and women, and contained the expression 
of a hope, on the part of the sanguine founders, that advanced 
classes would be formed and furnished with instructors, as the 
progress of the pupils should require, until all departments, prepar- 
atory, collegiate and theological, should be fully organized. To 
all human wisdom this was an extravagant expectation, but in one 
year or a little more from that time, every department was in full 
working order, with classes in every stage of advancement, even 
to the senior theological year. 

The work began thus with a vigorous impulse, and has contin- 
ued until now with little, if any, abatement of interest. There 
have been changes from time to time in the outward form of the 
activity, but the resultant movement has been ever the same. 



INAUGUEAL ADDEESS. O 

This rapid growth indicates great energy in the forces which 
gave the school its form. The men who imparted the first im- 
pulse were themselves examples of intensity of character, and 
came to the work glowing with the revival heat of those years. 
The early colonists and students partook of the same spirit. To 
the young people who came in large numbers from their Eastern 
homes to the school in the wilderness, it was essentially a mis- 
sionary enterprise. Thus the work itself was an inspiration. 
There was everything to do — a great opportunity to those who 
had a mind to work. The very difficulties to be overcome roused 
the energies to the highest endeavor. Every tree that fell, every 
house that rose, was a sign of progress, and left the impression 
that patient labor must achieve results. This was but the begin- 
ning. A year later there came upon the field the man who, more 
than any other, had been in the front of the great religious move- 
ment that had swept the land, himself instinct in every fibre of 
his being with the spirit of aggressive Christian work. His mag- 
netic power was alone sufficient to move the little community to 
intensest action. But he was not alone ; there came with him 
men of like spirit, fit associates for the great enterprise — men 
that were alive to every promise of improvement, and ready for 
every well-directed advance. At the same time the students of 
Lane Seminary, charged with the electricity of the approaching 
anti-slavery tempest, came in upon us ; and others, who smelt the 
battle from afar, gathered to the scene. Here was a magazine of 
living energy ; would it be smothered and suppressed by the 
overhanging forests, or go off in some mild explosion for lack of 
scope for beneficent action ? By those not in the spirit of the 
movement sometimes one result was predicted and sometimes the 
other, but neither occurred. There was plenty of rough work to 
be done that engaged all the physical energy that could be 
brought to bear — forests to extirpate, houses to build, a rugged 
soil to subdue, roads to construct, and a college to rear. All 
these were done ; but these were not enough. So much earnest 
life could not exhaust itself in mere material advancement. The 
moral elements were moved to their profoundest depths. The 
narrower the field, the deeper and more thorough was the culture. 
As there was little material without upon which spiritual activity 
could employ itself, it was turned inward upon tlie work of self- 
improvement. The individual Christian life was thoroughly an- 



6 IITAUGURAL ADDRESS. 

aljzed, all its possibilities and liabilities canvassed, and many 
blessed experiences resulted, transforming and energizing the life 
and character. 

At the same time great intellectual activity prevailed, especially 
in the domain of religious thought and philosophy. Questions in 
theology and morals, theoretical and practical, were brought for- 
ward and discussed with as much earnestness as if they had never 
been examined before. Unanimity of opinion by no means came 
from oneness of purpose. The reasons were demanded and given, 
and were accepted or rejected with complete and conscientious 
freedom. Professor and student, pastor and colonist, stood on 
the common platform and exercised the common right. Ko doc- 
trine was accepted because it was old, or rejected because i^ was 
new. Possibly the presumption was held to be in favor of the 
new, but the old never yielded without a vigorous struggle. These 
oscillations of opinion never transcended the limits of orthodox 
belief. The law and the testimony settled every difference ; but 
the standards were sometimes disposed of with most irreverent 
freedom. 

It was not possible that all the vitality of the place should be 
expended at home. The outer world was somewhat rudely jos- 
tled in various quarters by the activity which originated here. 
Anti-slavery lecturers sallied out to summon the faithful to the 
latter-day crusade. Preachers who had accepted the old gospel 
with a new baptism, went forth proclaiming the unsearchable 
riches of Christ. Every student, going to his winter's school, 
became a propagandist of the new ideas ; and thus was the world's 
quiet disturbed. The old Whig and Democratic parties that had 
divided the vote between them as their rightful heritage, found, 
one evening, upon return of an election, that Oberlin religion had 
meddled with politics. The experience was distasteful, and there 
was serious talk at the county seat of summary vengeance upon 
him who was supposed to be the head and front of this offending ; 
but better counsels prevailed, and the meddling continued until the 
County and the State and the nation had accepted the idea. Young 
men who had seen the College spring into a vigorous life from a 
small beginning, naturally inferred that a like thing could be done 
again ; and flourishing schools in Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, 
Illinois, Indiana and Kentucky, all modeled after the original, are 



INAUGURAL ADDRESS. ? 

the growing fruit of their conviction and their persistent labor. 
It is doubtful whether so many enterprises of the kind ever before 
emanated from a single centre in a single generation. 

The young preachers who went forth with the suspicion of 
heresy upon them, were not always welcomed to established pulpits 
and comfortable livings ; but there was always room in the " re- 
gions beyond." Home missionary aid was hesitatingly and spar- 
ingly extended, but congregational churches, almost the only pos- 
sible churches for an Oberlin minister to found in those times, 
were established " in advance of all others." In many cases they 
were only known as abolition churches and Oberlin churches, and 
years elapsed before they were embraced in any " healthy organi- 
zation ;" but in the interval between the Albany Convention and 
the Boston Council, they were generally received into the common 
fellowship. 

The aggressive movement extended even beyond the boundaries 
of our own land, planting missions among the Indians of the North- 
west, the freedmen of Jamaica, and in Western Africa ; besides 
reinforcing other missions already planted. To sustain and extend 
these operations, a missionary association was organized, an instru- 
mentality providentially raised up for the special gospel work of 
our time — the elevation of the freedmen of our own land. To a 
great extent, this association has found its missionaries among the 
young men and women trained here. 

In a school thus kept in sympathy with the great movements of 
the day, it was impossible that the call of the country, in the hour 
of its peril, should not meet an earnest response ; and so we parted 
with our young men, in scores and hundreds, glad of the spirit of 
Christian patriotism that was in them, and sorrowing most of all 
that the faces of many of them we should see no more. 

Thus during the years past the work has gone on among us, 
primarily a work of Christian education, but an education charged 
with energetic, aggressive life, acting in many points upon the 
interests of the outer world. As the immediate numerical result, 
our catalogue presents the names of 243 who have taken the Theo- 
logical course, 502 who have graduated from College, and 392 who 
have completed the Ladies' course of four years, in all 1,137 grad- 
uates ; and some fifteen thousand others who have enjoyed the 



8 INAUGUKAL ADDKESS. 

advantages of the school for a single year or more. Of such 
results it is proper to make grateful mention. The work has been 
arduous, carried on with limited means, and in the face of for- 
midable difficulties, but always full of interest and yielding a rich 
reward. There is no higher honor than to be called to share in 
such labor. 

But it is not so much my purpose to speak of results as to call 
attention to the somewhiat unusual style of college life which has 
sprung up in connection with our work, and which has character- 
ized our school down to the present time. The earnest, aggressive 
spirit of the enterprise has to a great extent pervaded the body 
of our students — the spirit of work — an apprehension that there 
is much to be done in the world and that they are to help. 
An interest in the vital questions which agitate society, and a 
sympathy with human life in its varied aspects, have in general 
prevailed among them. College life, with us, is not peculiar, 
occupied with its own exclusive interests, pursuing its own separate 
schemes, and governed by its own code of duty and of honor. 
Each student belongs still to the world, not isolated from its sym- 
pathies and obligations and activities. The ends he pursues are 
such as appeal to men in general, the reputation he desires is the 
same that will serve him in the work of life, and the motives to 
excellence are the natural motives which operate on men at large. 
The student still shares in the responsibilities of common life, 
and is here for the purpose of a better outfit for the work before 
him. 

The prevailing spirit shows itself in the discipline and order of 
the school. Our work in this respect has often been a wonder to 
ourselves. Notwithstanding our large numbers, ranging for thirty 
years from five hundred to a thousand in attendance, with a gov- 
erning force entirely inadequate to close personal surveillance, 
and without any effort to realize so close a supervision, we 
have been favored with an unusual degree of good conduct, of 
fidelity in duty, and interest in study. The instances calling for 
disciplinary notice have been comparatively rare. A word 
from a teacher iu the way of private suggestion has in general 
proved sufficient. Among the multitude of new-comers in the 
lower departments it is not so rare to find one who affords no 
promise of a successful course, and who before the close of his 



INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 9 

probation is furnished with a permanent leave of absence, but in 
the regularly organized classes of the College and Ladies' Depart- 
ments, numbering from two to four hundred in constant attend- 
ance, such an event has probably not occurred on an average 
more than once in five years. In one instance at least a period of 
ten years or more passed without a single exclusion from these 
classes. It is not because grave offences against order and pro- 
priety have been overlooked. They have not appeared. A year 
has often passed without a single case calling for disciplinary at- 
tention on the part of the Faculty. The general sentiment 
in favor of good order is a powerful restraint, even upon 
the wayward. The earnest and manly attitude of the pupil 
puts him in sympathy with the purposes and aims of the 
Faculty, securing mutual confidence and good-will. The 
somewhat prevalent antagonism of feeling between students and 
the governing authorities of the College has scarce ever appeared 
among us ; nor have we been afflicted with that unclean spirit 
called honor among students, under which gross misdemeanors 
sometimes find shelter. The relations between students and Fac- 
ulty are such as result from mutual respect for each other's feel- 
ings, and a common interest in a worthy object. The associations 
of teachers and pupils are characterized by a democratic freedom, 
sometimes a little startling to those accustomed to a different 
style, but very enjoyable to those who are in the spirit of it. The 
fashion of outward demonstrations of respect, appropriate enough 
in themselves, but not always significant, has not greatly obtained 
among us, but the reality has been our permanent satisfaction. 

No monitorial system of surveillance and report has been found 
necessary. Each pupil reports his own success and fidelity in 
conforming to the required order. False returns are, doubtless, 
sometimes made, but the system tends to educate and establish 
the true sense of honor. An evasion of duty is not reckoned evi- 
dence of manliness, nor even of smartness. 

No use has been made of the system of grades and honors, nor 
even of prizes. Our marking system is for the more definite in- 
formation of teacher and pupil, not for public use. Each student 
finds his position under a free public sentiment ; his natural abil- 
ity, his success as a scholar, and his social and moral qualities, all 
blending to give him the position and influence that belong to 



10 INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 

him. The plan does not secure the intense emulation which under 
another system stimulates a few while it fails to reach the many ■ 
but the principle is more diffusive, appealing to every one with 
nearly equal force, and thus perhaps it may be quite as effective 
and beneficent. The danger of personal jealousies and bitterness 
is almost wholly averted, and the motives which excite to endeav- 
or are such as will operate on the man when he takes his place 
in general society. Thus he is training for his work. 

Under the prevailing College sentiment the relations of classes 
to each other have been universally wholesome and generous. No 
hereditary feuds exist among them. No freshman was ever hazed, 
no sophomere ever rushed. The class feeling is sufficiently strong 
to secure unity of interest and hopeful action, and to make a cen- 
tre of pleasant associations and memories ; but the minor pertur- 
bations of college life, intense in proportion to their insignificance, 
vindicating the prerogative of cane or hat, have found no place. 
No college rebellion has ever arisen among us. Earnest dissent 
from college arrangements has sometimes been expressed, but al- 
ways in a spirit of reason and subordination, ready to accept if 
unable to convince. Secret societies, shaping by their powerful 
underworking college life and politics, have not been known 
among us. It is true they have been prohibited by authority. So 
they have been elsewhere, and still have come into being. They 
do not seem to be the natural product of student-life here. 

In a word, the type of college society and influence realized 
among us is like that of well-ordered general society, in the rela- 
tions that subsist, and in the influences it generates. Students 
here are still members of the community at large, and share in its 
interests and responsibilities. The irregularities which occur are 
of the same kind as those which may occur in any well-ordered 
community, and are not the disorders peculiar to a university 
town. These facts, thus briefly stated, seem to indicate some un- 
usual arrangement of educational forces, yielding a result, in our 
judgment, as desirable as it is perhaps unusual. 

It may be supposed at first tiiought that these acknowledged 
advantages of manly spirit and of college order have an offset — 
that such an intimate sympathy with the outer world, involving a 
share in the duties of common life, must be a drawback upon suc- 
cessful study. It is not an unnatural thought that concentration 
upon study requires seclusion, and that ordinary college life, tak- 



INAUGUEAL ADDRESS. 11 

ing the student out from society, into a distinct community de- 
voted to the single purpose of study, affords the conditions of 
highest success. But in effect a new society is thus instituted, 
making equal if not greater demands upon the thought and atten- 
tion of the student. The excitements of ordinary college society 
are not less, probably greater, than in ordinary life. The matters 
of interest are not of themselves of weighty concern, but they take 
the place of weighty matters. A community of students must 
have something to expend their excitability upon, aside from the 
regular order of study. If the interests of the country are ex- 
cluded college politics will take their place, and the little commu- 
nity is more deeply stirred by the election of a president of a lit- 
erary society than of a president of the Republic. It is even 
questionable whether the presence of graver matters would not 
consolidate the character, and dispose to a better use of time and 
opportunities. Study will be effective in proportion to the mo- 
tives which induce it, and he who lives in sympathy with the 
movements of the world and feels its claims is most likely to give 
himself earnestly to a preparation for his work. 

But if there were an actual expenditure of force required to 
maintain an interest in these graver matters, it is by no means 
clear that the expenditure would not be wise. The College is a 
place for education, not merely for the acquisition of learning. If 
a knowledge of books were the only requisite, perhaps a cloister 
would be better than a College. But the great object is such a 
discipline as qualifies for service in the world. Learning has its 
place, but it is to be contemplated as an instrumentality, not an end. 
Successful education must give power, and must use study for the 
development of power. This power comes from generous impulses 
and noble aims, a knowledge of men and a feeling of their wants, 
a knowledge of G-od and sympathy with his work. A human 
mind charged with learning but without any kindling of soul to- 
ward God or toward man, is not a power. The simplest heart 
that loves God and pities men is mightier far. No one ever ques- 
tions that a pervading religious influence is essential in any desir- 
able system of education, and he who is educated apart from such 
a moulding force, lacks a prime element of power, not to speak of 
the great loss to his own heart and character. A similar power 
attaches to the living interests of the world to impress and ener- 
gize the student. Humanity and religion alike are needed to stim- 



1,2 INAUaURAL ADDRESS. 

ulate and inspire to generous action. It cannot but be desirable 
that these forces should operate upon 'the character, during this 
moulding process of education. Without tliis there must be a 
loss, and there is danger that it will become permanent. That 
style of student life which shall most naturally keep open the 
channels of sympathy with the great interests of the world, at the 
same time that it brings the faculties under rigorous discipline, 
must be the true ideal. Thus the forces which act upon the char- 
acter in its formation are the same that will prevail through life, 
the normal forces of society. The student naturally grows into 
the life he is to live, and his work comes upon him, but not as a 
strange and new experience, but simply as an enlargement of the 
life he has already lived. 

Is it not possible that the special forces peculiar to the College 
for stimulating to study may be overdone — that the energy called 
out by intense competition will fail when these special forces are 
withdrawn ? When the student leaves College all the old motives 
peculiar to his student life cease to operate. He must build up 
habits of labor on a new foundation. There is danger that he 
will not readily respond to these new motives, and that his power 
of accomplishment will vanish when the impulse that moved him 
is withdrawn. There is a popular notion, whether well or ill 
founded, that those who, under the high pressure of college life, 
have stood foremost as scholars, often disappear from view, and 
lose their ambition and their power when the support on which 
they have leaned is withdrawn. 

I may be permitted to express our satisfaction in view of the 
results here attained. It has seemed to us that the ideal of gene- 
rating a working character in our pupils has been, during the 
years that are past, in some degree realized. We do not flatter 
ourselves that there have been no serious short-comings, and that 
there remains no room for improvement. In many cases our hopes 
of individuals have not been met, and many of the imperfections 
incident to a new enterprise have marred the work. But with all 
these abatements, there is occasion for grateful recognition of di- 
vine favor, and encouragement to go forward in the maintenance 
of whatever of good we have in possession, and to the attainment 
of good that is within our reach. 

Here an important question occurs : Is not the spirit of aggres- 
sive energy which has seemed to characterize the school in the 



INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 13 

past, the result of temporary forces acting at the commencement 
of the work, which must necessarily disappear as the school be- 
comes consolidated, and the extraordinary impulse of its origin is 
expended ? Is it possible to maintain as a permanent character- 
istic that vital connection with the living world which has yielded 
a fruitage of earnest life and character ? Is not such a hope in 
itself unreasonable ? 

No doubt there was an intensity in the early movements which 
could spring only from the emergency, and which can never be re- 
produced in connection with this work. It was appropriate in 
the circumstances, but can never be a normal condition of life. 
The circumstances were unusual, and so was the resulting life. 
It is not desirable that either should be permanent. There was 
an unusual energy of thought and feeling and action throughout 
the country during the war of the rebellion. It was the product 
of the war, and must subside with it. It was desirable and inevi- 
table while the occasion existed, but rest from both is a blessing. 
So our day of conflict has passed by. But an earnest sympathy 
with every good work, a controlling interest in human life and its 
objects, is always to be desired and maintained. This is no ex- 
traordinary experience depending upon unusual causes. It is the 
only wholesome and worthy "kind of living — the only force under 
which generous and effective character can be formed. Such a 
spirit in our own school it is desirable to maintain, and the pros- 
pect of its maintenance is matter of grave concern. Is there 
ground of hope that our past experience may be continued? There 
are some things in our institutional arrangements that have con- 
tributed to this result thus far, and which seem to be permanent 
in our constitution. Let us refer to these briefly : 

The imbosoming of the College in a sympathizing Christian 
community — a community itself alive to all living interests, is one 
of these influential facts. It is not enough that a college be 
locally near to a thriving people, who can supply the material 
wants of the youth that gather to its halls. It is of far more con- 
sequence that the college form a part of that community and share 
in its responsibilities — that the churches embrace the young peo- 
ple so as to establish a common religious and social life. In this 
respect we have been greatly favored, and have every reason to 
hope for the future. 

The school and the place had a common origin, and have a 



14 INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 

common history. No jealousies or misunderstandings have pre- 
vailed to produce separation. This fact itself, so unusual, re- 
quires explanation ; but, whatever the cause, the fact is unques- 
tionable, and is fruitful of good results. Every one belongs in a 
sense to the community and needs a good standing in it. His 
circle of personal aquaintance may be small, but he feels the 
public sentiment and finds an impulse in it. This good under- 
standing we hope to maintain. There is in it a great mutual 
advantage. A body of students in a community, but not of it, 
living a separate life, is not in general an element that contributes 
to good order. Jealousies and antagonisms arise which make 
the relation uncomfortable. It seems a higher wisdom not to 
have any partition-walls, but to bring the school and the com- 
munity under a common responsibility. We have found a bless- 
ing in this relation ; some care and thoughtfulness on both 
sides will be necessary to maintain it, but we have a good be- 
ginning and no indications of any interruption. 

Contributing to this community of social life is the somewhat 
peculiar social constitution of the College. Young men and 
young women have been gathered here together from the begin- 
ning, enjoying the common advantages. The arrangement has 
been regarded with disfavor by many, and with bare toleration 
by others, even of our friends ; especially those of Eastern educa- 
tion. An experience of a generation should afford some ground 
for positive opinion, and such opinions are held by those who 
have shared in the responsibility here. Probably no one of 
them has ever seriously questioned the desirableness of the sys- 
tem. We have a full conviction that it tends to good order, 
elevates the standard of college morality, operates as a stimulus 
to individual exertion, even beyond a system of grades and hon- 
ors, and not least of all, it secures to the student the wholesome 
influences of common home-life during his years of education. He 
finds himself still a member of society, responsible to its senti- 
ment and dependent upon his good name for a fair standing. 
This all-pervading influence is a mightier restraint than any 
college police or discipline, and to a great extent removes the ne- 
cessity for these artificial restraints. Theoretical objections can 
have little force in the presence of an experience of more than 
thirty years, giving the same uniform result. Much of the whole- 
some order and earnest life that have prevailed among us we 



INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 15 

attribute, without hesitation, to this feature of our work. It has 
been a blessing in the past — we expect good from it in the 
future. 

A suggestion has been recently made, that while the system is 
favorable in its operation upon young men, it must be undesir- 
able for young women — that this mutual association in the classes 
will give a resultant of character, in which young women lose in 
delicacy and refinement what young men gain in sobriety and self-re- 
spect. The idea could never have sprung from experience, nor from 
any careful thinking. It is inconceivable that one sex should be 
elevated by an association which depresses the other. Young 
women will not be rendered coarse or indelicate by a social life 
which makes young men generous and chivalrous and self-re- 
spectful. Both must rise or fall together. The thought that 
young women must become masculine and strong-minded by meet- 
ing with young men in the class-room and in social life, is an 
impeachment of divine wisdom. Strength and manliness on one 
side, and delicacy and gentleness and good sense on the other, are 
the sure result of the great fact that at the beginning God made 
us male and female. Masculine character and aspirations in wo- 
man are not readily generated in ordinary society. Such views 
and tendencies have not prevailed here. More than anything 
else, perhaps, this feature of our system has rendered a comnmnity 
of interest between the college and the community possible and 
natural. 

Another feature in our system is the Preparatory Department, 
as it is called, embracing large numbers in the earlier stages of 
education — not children, but young men and women of suitable 
age to go from home to school. These are liere not simply to 
prepare for the higher departments, but to obtain that general 
education necessary in private and business life. These young peo- 
ple are direct from their homes, and infuse into our college public 
sentiment, an element of practical and vigorous life. They are our 
house of commons ; we could not well spare them. They not only 
afford the material from which our higher classes are supplied, 
but these primary classes present a field of earnest labor to our 
most advanced students. Tlie teaching in these classes is done, 
under the supervision of permanent of&cers, chiefly by students 
from the higher classes. In this work forty or fifty of the stu- 
dents of more mature scholarship and character are engaged. In 



16 INAUGUEAL ADDRESS. 

this relation they become interested in the progress and welfare 
of those under their care, and are naturally led into labors most 
interesting and fruitful of good. Sustaining the double relation 
of teacher and pupil, they accomplish a work which, as students 
merely, they would not undertake, and which permanent teachers 
could not do. The system was the outgrowth of our narrow 
means. The wisdom of it is not merely human. It secures a 
practical tendency in our best scholars, and trains them to earnest 
and efficient work, giving them habits of responsible labor, and 
keeping them in the spirit of it. It secures in the school a per- 
manent and pervading force on the side of good order, as natural 
and quiet in its operation as it is efficient. It forms a link be- 
tween faculty and students, establishing a community of interest, 
and preventing those misunderstandings and antagonisms so fre- 
quent and so forbidding. It involves an expenditure of time and 
strength on the part of those who engage in the work, but its re- 
action is salutary in discipline and self-culture ; it brings its 
recompense in self-poised and self-reliant scholarship and character. 
Closely related to this in its bearing is the arrangement by 
which our students in large numbers find employment for the 
winter vacation in the schools of the surrounding country. The 
extent of this work is almost surprising. Five hundred teachers 
and more have sometimes gone out in a single year ; the large 
majority disposed and qualified to do a good work. The immedi- 
ate result to popular education is a matter of great importance. 
Its effect as a recruiting enterprise for our ranks at home is very 
marked. But of these, I cannot speak. The reaction upon the 
character of the young people is the point of special interest. 
The experience of labor thus afforded — the taste of practical 
working-life, shows itself in serious and earnest living. It keeps 
alive the spirit of work and consolidates and strengthens the 
character. A knowledge of the world and a sympathy with its 
needs are wrought into their permanent habits of thought and 
feeling, and render their knowledge of books and their literary 
culture elements of effective power. Perhaps this feature in 
the system may explain the passion exhibited by our students for 
founding and organizing schools and colleges. This arrangement, 
too, was the outgrowth of pecuniary necessity, and has often been 
regarded as in itself undesirable. A vacation in summer and 
study in winter seems to be the natural order, and we have 



INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 17 

sometimes envied those who enjoy the privilege. But it is ques- 
tionable whether we could afford the change, even if the pres- 
sure of want were removed. A vacation in summer is for recre- 
ation and amusement ; the winter vacation brings work — a 
change of employment, however, which serves some of the pur- 
poses of rest. There is ground for apprehension that a transfer 
of the vacation to the summer months would materially de- 
press the tone of our college life, and in the same degree abate 
from the efficiency of our educational forces. Desirable as rest 
during the heat of summer might seem, it may be that our ne- 
cessity has brought us a blessing. 

A Theological Department was in the original plan of the 
school, and has been one of its prominent features. It has em- 
braced young men of decided character and leading influence, 
and has tended to diffuse their earnest purpose throughout the 
school. This relation of the department to tlie school, opening a 
field of inviting and effective labor, has reacted upon its members 
to bring them into harmony with their chosen work, and to keep 
them in the true spirit of it. The department has paid for itself 
in this home influence, elevating the tone and spirit of the entire 
school, and giving to the work the character of a great moral en- 
terprise. Of the direct results accomplished in furnishing to the 
Christian ministry a goodly number of earnest, self-denying, use- 
ful men, who have found a good work to do and have done it, I do 
not propose to speak. Such men are still in demand, and the call 
was never more pressing than now. To those who have had re- 
sponsibility here it has seemed a good place to train up such men. 
A large school to furnish material, a vigorous spirit of Christian 
labor animating the large body, many influences favoring the de- 
velopment of Christian activity, a location between the East and 
the West where Eastern cultnre and Western enterprise might 
readily meet, and where Southern destitution opens its wide door 
— it seems a good point at which to look out upon the great har- 
vest-field, and to equip for the work. Those of us who have had 
our training in this prophets' school, besides the decided impulse 
received in the direction of our chosen work, have occasion to 
make grateful mention of views imparted in theological philos- 
ophy, which to our thought illuminate the whole field of theoret- 
ical and practical truth — views which, in our judgment, might do 
2 



18 INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 

good service in many directions, especially in the struggle be- 
tween revealed religion and modern rationalism. To many it will 
sound like vain boasting to suggest that the world cannot afford 
to let these views die, or that they should have any weight in the 
practical question of maintaining here an efficient theological 
school. The Edwardean doctrine of virtue, as modified and elu- 
cidated by our venerated Professor in Theology, and scripturally 
applied and enforced by our patriarch in Biblical instruction, is a 
part of the inheritance in which we rejoice. We have a strong 
conviction that it would benefit others as well as ourselves. The- 
oretical as it is, it lays the foundation of many practical views, and 
works in admirably in the formation of efficient and practical char- 
acter. It is doubtful whether the same power for good could 
have been secured here upon any other philosophy. 

The theology of the Fathers of New England, thus freshened 
and elaborated, has been regarded with suspicion and apprehen- 
sion, and the suspicion has tended to turn away from us young 
men entering upon theological study. This prevailing feeling has 
restricted us in our supply of students almost entirely to our own 
college graduates. Many of these have already been under train- 
ing here during a period of six years, and some of them naturally 
feel inclined to seek the benefit of contact with other men and 
other views. This tendency has restricted our field still more, 
and upon this already narrow field the war encroached so as to 
obliterate entirely the class that should have appeared before you 
to-day. We cannot believe our work in this direction is com- 
pleted, or is to be greatly crippled. The matter has been laid 
before the churches naturally associated with us, and their co- 
operation is invited. The day of suspicion and distrust should 
have passed away, so that mutual effort may extend and diffuse 
the advantages for theological training here afforded. There 
seems at present no call for additional professional schools here, 
to constitute a completely equipped University. The idea of 
the enterprise from the beginning until now has been to afford 
such education as shall contribute to the great Christian move- 
ments of our land and of the world. An attempt to extend the 
idea would seem rather to destroy its unity and diminish its 
energy. 

One other feature of our work has broug-ht us into connection 



INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 19 

with tJie world without, and has contributed to give direction to 
our efforts. I refer to the attitude of the College toward the 
colored people of the land. It is not necessary to review the his- 
tory. This one fact alone of maintaining equal privileges for the 
colored race would have saved us from stagnation during the gen- 
eration past. It has moulded the character of our school in its 
general influence, and left a lasting impression upon the vast ma- 
jority of the thousands that have been gathered here. Wherever 
found they are the intelligent and constant advocates of freedom 
and justice for the colored man. No special effort has been re- 
quired to secure tliis result — no persistent course of instruction. 
It has grown out of the simple fact that our students have looked 
in the face those who have suffered the wrong, and liave felt the 
injustice. It has been a privilege to the colored student to be 
admitted here. It has been an equal blessing to his white broth- 
er to be so educated as to take naturally a right position on the 
great question of our country and our time. Our educational 
work would have been greatly marred if this element had been 
omitted. But it is not a fact of the past alone : it reaches into 
the future. The work of the education and enfranchisement of 
the colored people is before us for another generation. The war 
has not completed, but merely introduced it. A share in this 
work is laid upon us, in the providence of God, by our constitu- 
tion and our history. We cannot withdraw from the conflict if 
we would. We are not to stand alone as heretofore in receiving "^^ 
colored students ; every Northern school will open its doors, tech- 
nically, if not practically, and gradually the fact will cease to be 
a reproach or a distinction. Even now a colored young man is 
in the middle of his course at Harvard, who, two years ago, was 
represented in an Eastern paper as uncomfortable under the pre- 
judice at Oberlin ! But we are bound to the work as other 
schools are not. The field is open to us, and it is impossible that 
we should not enter in. This call is our birthright and heritage, 
and is among the influences which for years to come shall inspire 
the place, the College, and the people with the earnest working 
spirit. 

But all these iuternal arrangements and outward relations will 
avail to hold us to a course of progressive Christian activity, only 
as the individual and collective Christian life of students and 



20 INAUGUEAL ADDRESS. ^ 

teachers and people shall respond to the call that is upon us. If 
the people and the churches shall become absorbed in the business 
and movements connected with the outward prosperity of the 
place, and drop the work of Christian education and enterprise 
which is laid upon us, the future cannot prove fruitful of good as 
the past has been. The College cannot be separated from the 
place in spirit and action, and if it could be it would lose half its 
power. It is not enough that the people see that their own prosperity 
depends upon that of the College, and respond in generous material 
support. This is much and is essential, but even this will not be 
secured without a hearty sympathy in the great work of Christian 
education, which is our special call and privilege. It is this higher 
community of interest which must unite in permanent bonds the 
school and the people. 

If the teachers and officers of the school should lose their warm 
interest in the great Gospel enterprises of our time, and should 
become occupied with their studies and calling simply as intellect- 
ual pursuits, rather than as involving the higher interests of men 
and of the kingdom of God, the character of the work would be 
greatly changed. A school can be kept up to a warm and earnest 
sympathy with the great interests of life only under the impulse 
of men who themselves live in those interests. 

If our students should fail in their share of the responsibility, 
and allow the trivial matters which sometimes encroach upon 
student life to exclude the aims and purposes which are more gen- 
erous and more excellent, the result would be equally disastrous. 
There is no mightier force in determining the character of a school, 
than that of the students themselves. Our school was fortunate 
in the beginning, in a class of young people who came with serious 
views of life, and impres.^ed their own character upon our College 
arrangements and institutions. Down to the present time we have 
been favored with young people who have accepted these tradi- 
tionary habits, and have improved and extended them. Such asso- 
ciations and impulses, transmitted to us through several genera- 
tions of students, are a rich heritage more valuable to our school 
than endowment funds. The maintenance of these wholesome and 
elevating associations is the responsibility of the students of com- 
ing years. 



INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 21 

Nor is it a question to be determined solely by those who are 
gathered at this centre. The life of the churches of the land will 
be represented in the students that come in upon us. Coming 
from Christian homes and Christian communities, awake to all the 
interests that give value and significance to life, they will bring a 
blessing with them. These halls and walks and shades will become 
instinct with their noble spirit, and surround those who shall suc- 
ceed them as with a vital atmosphere of good. A single genera- 
tion coming in upon us, destitute of these impulses, with low aspi- 
rations and sordid views of life, would do much to extinguish this 
hereditary good. 

Such are the treasures which the past hands down to us, such 
the responsibilities of the present and the hopes and encourage- 
ments for the future. We may go forward with the assurance 
that He who has laid the work upon us will not fail those who 
commit to him their way, with the prayer that the work of their 
hands may be established. 



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028 356 682 



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